


The Two Queens of Arendelle

by TheColorBlue



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Gen, Sisters, written pre-film release
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 18:16:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheColorBlue/pseuds/TheColorBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the summers, Anna rules with Prince Consort Kristoff.<br/>In the winters, Queen Elsa comes down from the mountains. </p><p>(Not precisely in alignment with the mood, interpretation, and occurences of "The Queen of Arendelle").</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Two Queens of Arendelle

Anna and Elsa are the two queens of Arendelle.

In the summers, Anna rules with Prince Consort Kristoff. Kristoff is a pretty odd Prince Consort, given that he still works with the other ice harvesters and reindeer herders; he doesn’t have the head for politics, he says, and he’s as tight-lipped as ever. He doesn’t like to talk, is the thing. He likes being up in the mountains, and he likes smelling of reindeer, and he likes chewing on toothpicks or whatever it is that he likes to chew on. 

Queen Anna wears gowns of fresh green and blush pink. She holds herself erect, chin up, like Elsa always says a queen should do, and attends meetings of the general councils, and the various laboring guilds, and ambassadors, and all the things a queen ought to do. 

In the winters, Queen Elsa comes down from the mountains. 

These days, she’s happy. 

They used to think that Elsa coming into her powers was a curse, or the dormant curse of the queens of Arendelle, or something of that nature—but Elsa has come into her abilities, and together they broke the spell of the endless winter, and she is happy. Anyway, it’s not just the magic. Elsa was unhappy because she had to shoulder the burden of the kingdom, while Anna went swanning off, without duties or responsibilities, or anything at all. Elsa had been the queen of Arendelle, and there have always been queens. Even if there had been a brother, the crown was passed down through the daughters, and now it is shared. 

Even in the summers, though, people will go visit her ice palace. She likes the company, honestly. Tourists come, and the locals go up to enjoy the beauty of it as well. Kids slide down the sweeping banisters of stairs. Every week, Elsa constructs new gardens made of ice, statues of dragons and trolls that actually come alive. It is a wonder. 

Now it is the height of summer, and Elsa has come down to the valley in the fjord for a visit. 

Wherever she steps, ice frosts blades of grass and flowers and pebbles. It is early morning, on a rest day, and Anna has dragged Elsa out for a boat ride, just the two of them. When Elsa reaches over the side of the boat, ice crusts the surface of the rolling water, and then very slowly begins to melt under the light of the sun, drip drip drip. Her ice is never ordinary ice. You can see the crystalline snowflake patterns in them, as though cleverly contrived to be carved from the inside. They always last longer than ordinary blocks of ice too. Kristoff made a remark once about wondering if he ought to fear for his job—and then both Elsa and Anna had laughed when they realize that he’s made a _joke_.

Anna says, “Remember when we were children—“

And Elsa says, “You were always out on the water.”

And Anna says, “But once, you came out with me, and we went swimming in our underwear!”

Elsa rolls her eyes. “Now that was a scandal.”

Anna says, “We were just children. It was all right.”

Elsa touches the water, and the ice stretches out, like rays of a sculpted sun. “Yes. It was all right.”

When Elsa ran away, Anna came up the mountain, looking for her. 

It wasn’t, exactly, like Elsa had needed saving. What Elsa had needed, more than anything else, was to know that she didn’t have to lift every burden on the earth _by herself_. She didn’t have only the choice of running away… or coming back to rule the kingdom alone. 

Elsa doesn’t want to marry anyone, ever. 

But she doesn’t want to be alone. 

Anna brings out cider in smoky-glassed bottles from her picnic basket. She holds the bottles out to her sister, and Elsa allows herself a wry quirk at the mouth, and then she reaches out to just brush the glass of the bottles with her fingertips. The frost grows in the delicate, geometric shapes of her snowflakes. When they toast and tip the bottles back, the cider is cool, and sweet.

They sit together in the boat, enjoying the rocking of the water, and the view of the fjord as another ship sails into the harbor.


End file.
